Economic Development

LISC’s economic development initiatives boost the health of neighborhoods by investing in the physical and social assets of a community's business district. To make this happen, we support programs and invest in projects that cultivate entrepreneurship, attract new businesses, diversify the local retail mix and stimulate employment. It's the kind of development that grows local job opportunities and incomes, and brings goods and services to places where they're needed. These changes, in turn, ripple outward, beyond individual neighborhoods, improving the landscape for industry and employment, bolstering cities’ tax revenues and stimulating regional economies.

Equitable development requires an intentional focus on eliminating racial inequities, and making sure residents have a voice in the decisions that shape their neighborhoods.

— Donsia Strong Hill, LISC Milwaukee Executive Director

Equitable development is an approach to creating healthy, vibrant, inclusive communities of opportunity. Equitable outcomes come about when smart, intentional strategies are put in place to ensure that everyone can participate in and benefit from decisions that shape their neighborhoods and regions. Lifting up these historic Milwaukee neighborhoods, rather than displacing and replacing, underlies all of our work.

The Beerline Trail Neighborhood Development Project is a creative placemaking collaboration focused on the development and activation of the Beerline Trail. The collaboration works with partners from public, private, non-profit, and community sectors to strategically shape the physical and social character of the Beerline Trail and surrounding neighborhoods.